


The Price of Freedom

by Snowingiron



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, M/M, Mild Smut, Off-screen torture, Possessive Behaviour, Sequence 8 Spoilers, Slash, Violence, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:46:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowingiron/pseuds/Snowingiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Attend the tale of Maxwell Roth, he sought the footlights like a moth. His sense of timing never off until he opted to collaborate with a hooded reprobate. The Blighter and Assassin made a deadly double bill.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or: How Oberon Roth became Maxwell Roth and fell for a dangerously attractive young man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> basically, this is a fanfiction for someone's [fanfiction](http://flarenwrath.tumblr.com/post/132581535508/rant-time-rothfrye). A Rothfrye!rant by Flarenwrath. They wrote Roth so well and exactly how I pictured it, it's just perfect! You don't have to read it first but I basically used it as canon for my fic, so yeah... READ IT. It's so good :D First I wanted to write it from Jacob's pov but Roth was easier for me... and then it became a whole telling of Roth's story.
> 
> As always, english is not my first language, but I hope I did okay <3

Maxwell Roth had always longed for the unexpected. 

While travelling with his parent's theater troupe he always saw new places and people. As a child his parents where the only constant he needed and they named him Oberon, after the elf king, who they deemed compassionate, who helped poor Helena with her love sickness.

They couldn't have known that their boy would pick up on the less charming traits of his namesake. He was a trouble maker, hungry for a different kind of power and after he was old enough to be in the plays himself, he would change the words of the scripts, just to see the other actor choke on the following line that didn't fit anymore. He found pleasure in their surprised faces, flustered voices and it only got boring after his parents forbade him to participate anymore. 

_Bored bored bored._

It was a simple life and he hated it even more when less people came to see them and their stream of coins slowed to a trickle. He watched his parents argue about the future, a future they wanted to be safe and secure. So they started to rob houses after their shows, noble men on the street and merchants' shops. Oberon couldn't deny that it was a good lesson, it taught him many things, but he could see how it corrupted his parents' and his fellows' minds, the act of performance was not their focus anymore. They only ever did it for money and now it had lost its glow and fire.

"You don't understand, Oberon," his mother said. "Everything everyone does is only been done to survive. We're not living, we are working... and we'll do that for the rest of our lives."

Oberon frowned at his mother and took her hands when she turned to leave.

"So we cannot have both? Live and have money?"

She smiled at him fondly and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. 

"Only the nobles can have both."

One by one the people of their troupe left, until Oberon performed acts on his own, playing every role, like a man of hundred personalities running across the stage to catch the next line. People didn't appreciate it, they didn't enjoy it and he cursed them because they didn't understand.

"The world does not follow this script, only your own!" He shouted in his final performance and sunk on his knees, palms raised into the air. "Which god do you pray to now? Liberty, in a far away land that you'll never reach? Libera, whose wine stains taste of blood?"

He looked at the few faces that still remained, determined to see the show they had paid for. But Oberon was having none of that. He looked at them directly, climbing from the small stage to grab the wide-eyed woman who seemed to be the only one who understood.

"The price of freedom is your sanity."

*

His mother had her arm wrapped around Oberon's shoulders when they entered London. She held him tight like he was a little boy but he wasn't, he was nothing. Yet. He was put in a workhouse while he watched his parents live on the streets, every employer turning them away. Oberon knew that his parents had build up a reputation due to their criminal activities. It was like a spider's web covered London and whispered into everyone's ear what they had done in the past. His mother's cheeks were hollow, his father's face grey like ashes and his own skin refused to catch the light of the sun. 

"We are cursed," his mother whispered into his hair. "We are cursed but you shall become a king, a king of the elves. Oh, Oberon."

But he didn't want that. He wanted to climb high but he didn't want to be a king. Kings were loved and feared equally, worshipped, but also targets of assassins for the rest of their lives. He wanted to be the shadow of a great man, he wanted to prosper in the dark.

There was a family offering him a job as a servant boy. He accepted, since they were paying him and even though he envied their riches, he felt like part of something again, for a while. They had a son, a beautiful son who smiled a lot, said 'yes' to everything his parents said, but when they turned away he showed Oberon his most treasured collection of butterflies and coins. Something those noble parents declared pointless. Oberon liked the boy a lot, someone who wanted more but was trapped in a world of glamour that tried to control him.

Oh, Oberon loved that boy. 

So he did what he thought was best: leave everything behind. That was what he wanted to do, so why not run off together? But the boy said no, he said no to Oberon and where did he go wrong? Was the boy still clinging to his mother's skirt?

"Don't you want to be free?"

"I'm sorry, Obi... but an uncertain future... scares me. And... and I don't want to be with you."

Oberon remembered the boy's face, burned the sadness into his memories and lifted his chin in a judging way. 

"Perhaps you will say 'yes' to me. One day."

Oberon didn't have many rules, in fact, there was only one: Do not betray me. He had offered a new part of the world to this boy and he had refused. To punish someone was the only thing he knew how to do, even more than to love. 

The boy was kneeling in front of his burning home, he heard the screams of his parents and the other servants, it echoed through the streets and his body. He couldn't cry and he couldn't run inside to either die with them or to save them. He was just a boy... 

"I hate you," the boy whispered and looked up at him with shining hatred in his eyes. "One day you'll pay for this."

It sent a thrill of anticipation through Oberon's body and he grinned at the idea of an unknown future like this. Would that boy be able to catch a shadow with his bare hands?

"I'm looking forward to that day... Lewis."

On that night he left the elf king behind and became something greater... Maxwell Roth.

He ran off with London's circus and learned from them the art of destruction. He learned how to celebrate the most vile crimes and to capture them in performances. They used a lot of fire but they controlled it so well, like they could walk through it naked. This fire burned down his old self, made him rise like a phoenix while he vomited his past into the bushes. He was someone new entirely and there were no more strings to keep him safe during his walk on the tightrope.

_Burn burn burn._

In the circus, no one relied on safety nets, you just did it in the face of death. This was the kind of freedom Maxwell wanted and sometimes it reminded him of the past days in the traveling theater. But in the end, it was all a sleight of hand, a temporary part of happiness that would be ruined by money again. Money and limitation by structure. Perhaps that was why his parents had turned to crime. It was the greatest act to break the rules. It had a beginning, a climax and an end.

He often landed in prison but it only was the start of his stories. He loved to think of new ways to escape and to see the guards' faces whenever someone turned him in again. Oh it was a beautiful game that he always won and he managed what his parents had not: People feared him. Whether they admitted it or not, Maxwell Roth was a frightening curse on everyone's lips. His parents didn't understand what it meant to be a true criminal. There was no place for regrets. This was why he always managed to escape and they did not. He never saw them again.

Someone else returned to his life though. With a swift motion of his knife, a man sliced the skin next to his right eye and Maxwell was in awe. That man didn't just want to kill him, puncture his organs, he wanted to slice Maxwell to bits. Two of his men pulled back the would-be murderer and brought him to his knees. Maxwell touched the wound and hissed, it was deeper than he had thought, and he licked a few drops of blood from his fingers.

"Oh, my dear Lewis."

Lewis had gotten older, like Maxwell himself, but there still was a little flame that burned with the need to kill. Kill only one, but still.

"You should not have come back," Lewis spat.

"I never left... But you didn't think about me until now, did you? What a weak attempt with a kitchen knife... Didn't I teach you better than that?"

"You only taught me pain."

Maxwell smiled and tilted his head to show off the deep wound on his face. "Yes... and now you taught me back."

It still hurt when he retreated to his quarters and let a physician tend to the wound. He could feel the ache from his temple to his cheek and when the man started to sew it together, Maxwell knew it would leave an ugly scar. But he didn't care. Beauty was nothing he ever cared about, at least when it came to himself. Lewis never had been beautiful either, it always was the mind that he was drawn to.

"Tell me, doctor, are you free?"

The man stilled.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean, sir. How?"

But this was all he needed for an answer and he closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain by listening to Lewis' tortured screams from the basement. 

_What a symphony of the freed voice_

When he finally went to see Lewis, the man was beyond broken. He didn't scream anymore, he didn't cry and most importantly: He didn't smile. (He would never smile again.)

"I'm all you have left, isn't it?" Maxwell circled him like prey but it was not exciting anymore. Lewis was boring now. "All I can offer you is a place in my ranks. Be my servant like I was yours once and I'll promise you... If I die, you'll be there to see it."

Lewis swallowd, blood ran from his nose and mouth. Maxwell's men had served him well.

"I accept," Lewis whispered without emotion.

_Laugh laugh laugh._

Maxwell kept gathering people around him, taking over their work and their lives. He would do better than everyone else. And this was how he met Crawford Starrick. This man, he had a vision and he wanted Maxwell to be part of that. 

"Can you fight?"

"Yes. I've learned a lot in these past years."

"Can you train my blighters?" Starrick didn't look at him, just stirring his tea in perfect circles. 

"If I do that, what will you give me?"

"The Strand. The whole borough to watch over and deal with in my terms." Now Starrick raised his eyes and Maxwell felt that spark inside of himself again.

"Yes," Maxwell exclaimed. "That will do."

He trained the other blighters, who wore red with honour. They wanted red to be the last thing their victims saw, they thought that Starrick wanted them to be soldiers, but Maxwell knew better. Maxwell knew Starrick. They weren't dressed in red to scare Starrick's foes. They were red because they were already dead. Starrick didn't care about any of the faceless men and even his henchmen were just means to his ends. Except for Lucy, perhaps. Everyone needed that one thing they could hold on to. Maxwell scowled at his tightened chest and turned away.

He had thought Starrick was a man with a vision, and he was. But his vision was so otherwordly, so stubborn and linear that Maxwell was soon disgusted by it. Only one way and no room for surprises, the unexpected. Every day was the same, even as a henchman. The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that through Starrick he finally had enough income to buy the burned out theatre in The Strand. He remembered standing in front of it with his parents, when they had still dreams that weren't corrupted by a life of crime. Fortunately, Maxwell had never been that pure. This time it wouldn't be like the old days with the troupe. This time he would combine the past with what he had learned in the circus and the people wouldn't turn away. 

Then the rooks showed up, with Jacob Frye as their burning leader. The moment Maxwell saw him kill the borough's henchman he was captivated and obsessed like he had never been before. Starrick or Lewis were nothing compared to Jacob Frye. 

He had already written the invitation to the man, safely tucked into his breast pocket, but first he wanted to see more. When one of his blighters reported that Jacob was in the fighting pit since dawn, Maxwell decided to attend, which he had never before. He had always been attracted to the violence that the mind could inflict, and when he looked at the blighters, all he saw was brute and senseless behaviour. That's why it confused him to no end that he was attracted to the way Jacob fought in there. His body was a weapon controlled by his mind and every step was part of this murderous dance, his tattoo of a raven moving with him in absolute harmony. Even when the others landed a punch, Jacob didn't give in, didn't give up. He absorbed the pain to fuel his punches, wearing each wound like a batch of honour.

Maxwell gripped the edge of the bench when Jacob Frye dislocated a man's arm and almost broke another one's neck. There was so much confidence in his movements, so much... freedom. He felt his cock jump at the sight, which it had rarely done in the past and even less in the presence. Maxwell needed to meet him.

It was even better than he had imagined. Jacob wasn't just handsome and deadly with his hands, he was also smart. He was an assassin. Maxwell did neither care for Starrick and his templars nore for the assassins, all he wanted was for Jacob to be his own. But he remembered what had happened the last time, with Lewis, and this time he wanted to do it right. He needed to court him the right way, the way they both knew best and that was death and devastation. 

_Three times I met your mother before I proposed. So when you ever meet the right woman, you take her to three places. The first should show her who you are. On the second you should show her something she hasn't seen before. On the third, we watched a firework. It is always good to finish with a bang, like in theatre. On the fourth one, you give her everything._

He remembered his father's words clearly, a plan forming in his head to show Jacob what they could be capable of, together. Lewis watched from a distance without showing any feelings. He was just waiting. He was patient.

It wasn't until Maxwell bought the baby rook in the cage, that Jacob seemed to understand at least a little of what the man was doing. 

"Why did you choose rooks as your name, my dear?"

"They are like crows, ravens... each is different, but they are part of the same family."

Jacob was draped over Maxwell's couch like a subject waiting to be painted. The curve of his neck was inviting, his legs ready to part, but was it intentional?

"Ah, yes... Birds are always free."

"The rook you got there is not... You want to keep it in a cage and look at it forever?" Jacob just lifted one corner of his lips into a little smirk.

"Oh, well," Maxwell said while circling the couch in small steps. "You either set it free and hope it comes back to you, or you smother it with your love."

"And what do you want to do with me?"

Ah, his darling boy, he was so smart. 

"I want you to dance with me," Maxwell said with a grin and grabbed both of Jacob's hands to pull him on his feet. 

Their chests bumped together as a result and Maxwell kept him there, grabbing the assassin's waist with needy fingers of his right hand, letting the other stroke along Jacob's arm until he could grab his hand. They were close enough to actually dance and Jacob snorted but complied when Maxwell started to lead him in a slow rhythm. 

Again, Maxwell was enraptured, because Jacob followed his steps like he knew exactly which song they were dancing to. He knew every bit and Maxwell realised with awe that he heard the music of freedom, too, he just didn't know how to act on it. Not yet.

"Starrick will know, eventually," Jacob said in a low voice and shoved his hand past Maxwell's shoulder until he could touch his spine, pressing even closer against him. "I always wondered what the templars could offer you..."

"I don't care about the templars. They want to control the world but it demands anarchy in it's primal form. Chaos and mania."

"Is that so?" Jacob almost laughed while Maxwell lead him from one side of the room to the other. Lewis was still standing at the door, watching. "Maybe you would prefer the assassins."

The little hint of bitterness in Jacob's words made Maxwell raise both eyebrows.

"I like being an assassin... but too much of it reminds me of my father."

"Parents... they haunt us forever, even when we're old and should have children of our own. But ultimately they can't offer us anything after we've grown up."

"Let me guess: You cherish the feeling of being free of them. Free of any kind of obligation."

Maxwell grinned and turned them a round, quickening the pace of their dance, they were so close to the climax, he could feel it.

"When you reach true freedom, obligations are something you choose. _However_ ," Maxwell said and finally pressed Jacob against the wall, trapped like the rook in the cage, hand pressed against the wall beside his head. He wanted to keep him, to devour him, and then free him. "You need to choose yourself whether you permit it or not."

Jacob stared at him, for the first time Maxwell saw uncertainty in his eyes, but it only lasted a few seconds before he started to radiate determination. With his free hand Jacob brushed against Maxwell's scar and swallowed.

"There is a saying of the assassins... The only one I will always remembered." His eyes flickered to Maxwell's lips. " _Nothing is true, everything is permitted._ "

Maxwell made a pleased sound in the back of his throat, like the spark inside of both of them was suddenly set on fire and the older man surged forward to press a bruising kiss on his lips. Maxwell was not that unexperienced but Jacob obviously was, clinging to him awkwardly. Only then did he realise that Jacob had never kissed someone, never fucked or got fucked by anyone. He probably hadn't understood what he felt until that very moment and Maxwell was delighted to know that he was the one dragging him in front of that knowledge. He couldn't look away from it now and Maxwell teared at Jacob's clothes until he was naked, but when his boy tried to do the same to him, he batted his hands away. Somehow it aroused him more that only one of them was bare. Jacob didn't seem to mind, he didn't seem to mind anything. Neither Maxwell's age nor his appearance. Maxwell loved it.

So when he sat down on the couch, he let Jacob climb into his lap and straddle him with an already hard and leaking cock. It felt new and liberating that such a beautiful young man was drawn to him in that way, it filled an aching need he had pushed aside all these years. Jacob pressed against him, making desperate noises while nuzzling at his scar like it was a beauty spot. Maxwell took his time to touch Jacob, feel him up and grope him in the most filthy places until he would moan. Maxwell felt his own erection pressing uncomfortably against his trousers and he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside Jacob.

But he knew Jacob was not ready for that, not yet, but they would have so much time, their third date would be very soon and after that he'd host a whole show, only for him, and it would be the best one he ever performed. So instead he freed his own cock and then ordered Jacob to get them off.

"You might be inexperienced but you've touched yourself before, haven't you, my dear boy?"

Jacob was breathing heavily and nodding frantically at Maxwell's words. 

"Then do it, touch us both like you would touch yourself."

He watched Jacob's hand snake between them, folding his hands around their lengths. He started to stroke them immediately and both closed their eyes at the sensation, growling with a low voice.

"That's it, my dear."

Jacob quickened the pace almost immediately, too eager and impatient to delay the climax. He was young and Maxwell would let him come now to make him come over and over again later, until he was breathless and completely undone. He felt Jacob's hips twitch like it wasn't enough and Maxwell grabbed them with both hands, digging his fingers into them until he left marks, but instead of keeping Jacob steady it made him even more uncontrollable and it took Maxwell a moment to understand that Jacob got off on the little amount of pain. Jacob didn't just fight in the pit to win, he also wanted to feel the pain, to be alive, to be free. It made Maxwell's cock twitch in the young man's hand and he grinned up at Jacob, whose eyes were still closed, who tried to be good, and he was. He was so good. 

Maxwell would do so many things to him, bend him over his knee and slap his rear until the skin was red, make him kneel in front of him to worship Maxwell's cock. It would be glorious. And they would burn down the world together. Finally Maxwell could let go, let his head fall back and he came almost at the same time as Jacob did, probably because he was scratching his nails from Jacob's cheeks up to his hips.

Their seed was sticky and warm between them but Jacob didn't mind and grabbed the backrest of the couch, pressing closer against Maxwell to kiss him again. They kissed until they were breathless and then rested their foreheads against each other's.

When Maxwell looked over Jacob's shoulder he could still see Lewis at the other end of the room, watching them without batting an eye.

"Tomorrow," Maxwell whispered to his boy. "Tomorrow I'll show you a firework."

_Thrills thrills thrills._

But it didn't go the way he had planned. It was disappointing to watch Jacob jump off the roof to save a bunch of children. Those children were already dead, they worked for nothing and would die as nothing. But somehow Jacob still clung to the ideals of an old world that put children first. Maxwell was devastated. He would have shown Jacob a kind of freedom that lasted a lifetime, yet he had left him behind and turned his back on him. The climax would not change. He would still host a show, only with a different ending now.

It was easy to break the rook's neck, easy to put it into the box and give it to Lewis. It would not be easy to kill Jacob Frye.

( _"You should be warned, Mr. Frye, that when Roth is angry with one, he generally brings suffering to many."_ because Lewis knew too well.)

"Tonight's performance immortalizes and is for the benefit of a young fellow very near and dear to my heart."

Maxwell only dealt in absolutes and he didn't know how to forgive. Especially when he had let someone into his heart and then got punished for it. He would have given everything to Jacob on a silver platter, if only he had accepted freedom. Now 'everything' was a reminder of the betrayal and needed to burn. Jacob, the theatre and himself. Maxwell had offered Jacob to kill him once, if he couldn't provide him with more chances to weaken Starrick. This was the ultimate offer. Either Maxwell died or both of them.

_Burn burn burn._

He was surrounded by flames, conducting them with his hands to the same melody he had heard during his dance with Jacob. The people's screams emphasised the showdown in a satisfying way and his climax was different yet perfect. It had all the drama history had taught him and when he was suddenly lifted from the ground by Jacob, landing hard on the stage, he knew his end was here. Maxwell also knew that Lewis was close by, despite the flames. He wouldn't miss the finale.

_The stuff of legends._

"Why did you do It? All of it."

And still, this beautiful boy did not understand, did not get that true freedom was to do whatever one wished. Only fools asked for a reason, only miserable people searched for an answer until they were old and died with unresolved questions on their mind.

"For the same reason I do anything."

And even though he was angry, disappointed and hurting, he was also dying. So he pulled Jacob in for one last kiss, felt the young man give in at first and then resist because it felt wrong to him, to kiss Maxwell on his deathbed, surrounded by flames.

"Why not?"

And Maxwell died with a smile on his lips, because he had taught Jacob one last thing that he would remember forever: Thre price of freedom was _everything_.


End file.
